Simonet, Sharrad and about thirty other men. He grinned as he held my crossbow.
I flinched and shuddered, which made them all laugh. I felt paralyzed, unable to move anything but my head and neck. I glanced to either side and discovered my arms were spread apart and bound.
Thick ropes extended from my wrists to distant supporting pillars.
My breath caught in my throat. I tried to move my legs, to stretch my sore thighs. But they also stood apart on the dirt floor, my ankles secured to the same wooden pillars. I stared down at myself, helpless before the entire cult.
“Welcome, dear Helena,” Laurent said in mock greeting. “Or should I call you, ‘The Red Rider’?”
They exploded with hoots of triumph. All but the stone-faced Simonet, standing at Laurent’s side. A few men wore their black robes, but most were ready to resume the day’s normal work.
“I can’t tell you how pleased I am that you chose to visit us,” Laurent continued, like a gracious host. “A pity you can’t stay long.
Although you’ll be with us much longer than we hoped. We meant to finish you last night. To –
what is the word? Ah, yes. To ‘rid’ ourselves of you.”
This drew another round of cruel chuckles as Laurent patted my crossbow. I tried to stay calm as I tugged at the ropes, testing them. They had no give whatsoever.
“Unfortunately, your incompetent friend, Jacque Denue, failed to bring you at the proper 311
time, but waited until it was near dawn. We all lead busy lives during the day, which only leaves us the night for our private activities. The saddest part is that I have significant business to tend to this evening, so our plans for you will be delayed even further. But don’t fret, Mademoiselle. Come midnight, we’ll all gather to bid you a fond farewell.”
I pulled at the ropes again as a reflex, knowing it was pointless.
“You can’t see behind you, Helena, but there’s a long trough there. That’s where we’ll toss your bones when we’ve cleaned all the meat off them.”
My breath came in rapid gasps, to each man’s delight.
“I claim her belly,” said a gruesome red-haired man.
“I want one of her thighs,” Sharrad said with a smile, narrowing his blue-gray eyes.
Laurent stepped forward. “All I want is her face.”
“Not much meat there, Lord Laurent,”
Sharrad said.
“No,” Laurent admitted as he stood before me. He squeezed my cheeks together so hard I struggled to breathe for a moment. “But I want to see her eyes, wide and screaming, as she realizes her little adventure is over. Just before I devour her.”
I shook in his grip. They were going to eat me!
312
His face hardened into stone. “You should have accepted my offer to walk away, Helena.
Instead, you persisted in your stubborn attacks, killing over twenty of us in the last two months.
Making quite a name for yourself.” He clenched his teeth, almost snapping them together. “Now you can die like the rest. Except that you’ve earned yourself a much slower, more painful demise. I’m sure you’re quite impressed with yourself, for how well you’ve done. So consider it an honor, the agony we intend to put you through this evening.”
I kept still and focused on taking tiny breaths through my nose and teeth. I turned to Simonet, the only one not joining in the others’
celebration. His dull, fixed expression made me tremble even more.
“The only reason we’re not feasting on you now is we need moonlight to transform,” Laurent explained. “We don’t need it for long, but it’s easiest for us all to change at night. Once we assume our new shape, we can
